James A. "Jim" Corbett was born in Casper, Wyoming on October 8, 1933. He died near Benson, Arizona on August 2, 2001. Corbett was an American rancher, writer, Quaker, philosopher, human rights activist, and a co-founder of the sanctuary movement.
The son of a teacher and a substitute teacher, Corbett descended from European-American settlers and Blackfoot Indians, and he spent part of his childhood living on an Indian reservation. He graduated from Colgate University and received his master's degree in philosophy from Harvard. He took up ranching in Wyoming and Arizona and continued to herd goats and cows until his death. Corbett did research in beekeeping and goat husbandry, and he was also a librarian and philosophy instructor at Cochise College in Arizona.
In the early 1960s, Corbett converted to Quakerism and became an opponent of the Vietnam War. In 1981, while living in Arizona, he became aware of refugees fleeing from civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, who were crossing the border from Mexico into Arizona and seeking political asylum. At the time, very few of these refugees were receiving protection; the U.S. government was funding the governments of the countries from which the refugees were fleeing, and immigration judges were instructed by the State Department to deny most asylum petitions. Together with other human rights activists, Corbett started a small movement in Arizona to help these people coming across the border by providing assistance, transportation, and shelter. Under the auspices of churches and Quaker meetings, they cited the religious precedent of protecting people fleeing persecution, as well as the Geneva conventions barring countries from deporting refugees back to countries in the middle of civil wars (non-refoulement). The activists found support for their work in congregations in Arizona, Illinois, Texas, and eventually communities in many other states including California, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington. The "sanctuary movement" eventually involved over 500 congregations and helped hundreds, if not thousands, of refugees find freedom in the United States; it was one of the most famous examples of civil initiative in the 1980s. Corbett and nine others around Tucson, Arizona were arrested for violating U.S. immigration laws. He was eventually acquitted and continued to assist refugees and to write on various topics of social justice.
